 civility, and twisted his head into a bow which
assured her as plainly as words could have done, that he was exactly the coxcomb
she had heard him described to be by Lucy. Happy had it been for her, if her
regard for Edward had depended less on his own merit, than on the merit of his
nearest relations! For then his brother's bow must have given the finishing
stroke to what the ill-humour of his mother and sister would have begun. But
while she wondered at the difference of the two young men, she did not find that
the emptiness and conceit of the one, put her at all out of charity with the
modesty and worth of the other. Why they were different, Robert explained to her
himself in the course of a quarter of an hour's conversation; for, talking of
his brother, and lamenting the extreme gaucherie which he really believed kept
him from mixing in proper society, he candidly and generously attributed it much
less to any natural deficiency, than to the misfortune of a private education;
while he himself, though probably without any particular, any material
superiority by nature, merely from the advantage of a public school, was as well
fitted to mix in the world as any other man.
    »Upon my soul,« he added, »I believe it is nothing more; and so I often tell
my mother, when she is grieving about it. My dear Madam, I always say to her,
you must make yourself easy. The evil is now irremediable, and it has been
entirely your own doing. Why would you be persuaded by my uncle, Sir Robert,
against your own judgment, to place Edward under private tuition, at the most
critical time of his life? If you had only sent him to Westminster as well as
myself, instead of sending him to Mr. Pratt's, all this would have been
prevented. This is the way in which I always consider the matter, and my mother
is perfectly convinced of her error.«
    Elinor would not oppose his opinion, because, whatever might be her general
estimation of the advantage of a public school, she could not think of Edward's
abode in Mr. Pratt's family, with any satisfaction.
    »You reside in Devonshire, I think« - was his next observation, »in a
cottage near Dawlish.«
    Elinor set him right as to its situation, and it seemed rather surprising to
him that anybody could live in Devonshire, without living near Dawlish. He
bestowed his hearty approbation however on their species of house.
